Writers, progressive thinkers oppose reduction of SSLC pass percentage in Karnataka

Writers, progressive thinkers, and educationists have opposed the reduction of the pass percentage in Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) exams in Karnataka from 35 to 33.

Writers K. Marulasiddappa, S.G. Siddaramaiah; progressive thinkers K.S. Vimala, Babu Mathew, Janagere Venkataramaiah, Sripada Bhat, K.M. Vishwanath Marathur, educationists V.P. Niranjanaradhya, and others have written a letter to the Chief Minister expressing concern that the quality of education will decline due to this decision of the School Education Department.

They also urged the State government for withdrawal of the recent gazette notification in this regard.

According to the new rules, the students will pass SSLC exam if they get a minimum of 30 marks out of 100 in a subject. This means that if a student scores 20 out of 20 in the internal exam, and only 10 out of 80 in the external exam, the student will be declared as pass.

“Many students who scored 20 out of 20 in the internals during the last examination, did not get the minimum marks in the external exam. We don’t understand the quality index in place here, where the benchmark of true quality of learning is an external test, and scoring just 10 marks in it is enough,” they argued.